Dostoyevsky. Crime and Punishment - part 2 docx

But now, strange to say, in the shafts of such a cart he saw a thin little sorrelbeast, one of those peasants’ nags which he had often seenstraining their utmost under a heavy load of wo

Ostrov, came out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge

and turned towards the islands The greenness and freshness

were at first restful to his weary eyes after the dust of the town

and the huge houses that hemmed him in and weighed upon

him Here there were no taverns, no stifling closeness, no stench

But soon these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid

irritability Sometimes he stood still before a brightly painted

summer villa standing among green foliage, he gazed through

the fence, he saw in the distance smartly dressed women on

the verandahs and balconies, and children running in the

gar-dens The flowers especially caught his attention; he gazed at

them longer than at anything He was met, too, by luxurious

carriages and by men and women on horseback; he watched

them with curious eyes and forgot about them before they had

vanished from his sight Once he stood still and counted his

money; he found he had thirty copecks “Twenty to the

po-liceman, three to Nastasya for the letter, so I must have given

forty-seven or fifty to the Marmeladovs yesterday,” he thought,

reckoning it up for some unknown reason, but he soon forgot

with what object he had taken the money out of his pocket

He recalled it on passing an eating-house or tavern, and felt

that he was hungry Going into the tavern he drank a glass

of vodka and ate a pie of some sort He finished eating it as he

walked away It was a long while since he had taken vodka and

it had an effect upon him at once, though he only drank a

wineglassful His legs felt suddenly heavy and a great

drowsi-ness came upon him He turned homewards, but reachingPetrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely exhausted, turned offthe road into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and in-stantly fell asleep

In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have asingular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance ofreality At times monstrous images are created, but the settingand the whole picture are so truthlike and filled with details sodelicate, so unexpectedly, but so artistically consistent, that thedreamer, were he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev even, couldnever have invented them in the waking state Such sick dreamsalways remain long in the memory and make a powerful im-pression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system.Raskolnikov had a fearful dream He dreamt he was back

in his childhood in the little town of his birth He was a childabout seven years old, walking into the country with his father

on the evening of a holiday It was a grey and heavy day, thecountry was exactly as he remembered it; indeed he recalled itfar more vividly in his dream than he had done in memory.The little town stood on a level flat as bare as the hand, noteven a willow near it; only in the far distance, a copse lay, adark blur on the very edge of the horizon A few paces beyondthe last market garden stood a tavern, a big tavern, which hadalways aroused in him a feeling of aversion, even of fear, when

he walked by it with his father There was always a crowd there,always shouting, laughter and abuse, hideous hoarse singing

and often fighting Drunken and horrible-looking figures were

hanging about the tavern He used to cling close to his father,

trembling all over when he met them Near the tavern the road

became a dusty track, the dust of which was always black It

was a winding road, and about a hundred paces further on, it

turned to the right to the graveyard In the middle of the

grave-yard stood a stone church with a green cupola where he used

to go to mass two or three times a year with his father and

mother, when a service was held in memory of his grandmother,

who had long been dead, and whom he had never seen On

these occasions they used to take on a white dish tied up in a

table napkin a special sort of rice pudding with raisins stuck in

it in the shape of a cross He loved that church, the

old-fash-ioned, unadorned ikons and the old priest with the shaking

head Near his grandmother’s grave, which was marked by a

stone, was the little grave of his younger brother who had died

at six months old He did not remember him at all, but he had

been told about his little brother, and whenever he visited the

graveyard he used religiously and reverently to cross himself

and to bow down and kiss the little grave And now he dreamt

that he was walking with his father past the tavern on the way

to the graveyard; he was holding his father’s hand and looking

with dread at the tavern A peculiar circumstance attracted his

attention: there seemed to be some kind of festivity going on,

there were crowds of gaily dressed townspeople, peasant women,

their husbands, and riff-raff of all sorts, all singing and all more

or less drunk Near the entrance of the tavern stood a cart, but

a strange cart It was one of those big carts usually drawn byheavy cart-horses and laden with casks of wine or other heavygoods He always liked looking at those great cart- horses, withtheir long manes, thick legs, and slow even pace, drawing along

a perfect mountain with no appearance of effort, as though itwere easier going with a load than without it But now, strange

to say, in the shafts of such a cart he saw a thin little sorrelbeast, one of those peasants’ nags which he had often seenstraining their utmost under a heavy load of wood or hay, es-pecially when the wheels were stuck in the mud or in a rut.And the peasants would beat them so cruelly, sometimes evenabout the nose and eyes, and he felt so sorry, so sorry for themthat he almost cried, and his mother always used to take himaway from the window All of a sudden there was a great up-roar of shouting, singing and the balalạka, and from the tav-ern a number of big and very drunken peasants came out, wear-ing red and blue shirts and coats thrown over their shoulders

“Get in, get in!” shouted one of them, a young thick-neckedpeasant with a fleshy face red as a carrot “I’ll take you all, getin!”

But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and mations in the crowd

excla-“Take us all with a beast like that!”

“Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that in such

a cart?”

“And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates!”

“Get in, I’ll take you all,” Mikolka shouted again, leaping

first into the cart, seizing the reins and standing straight up in

front “The bay has gone with Matvey,” he shouted from the

cart—”and this brute, mates, is just breaking my heart, I feel as

if I could kill her She’s just eating her head off Get in, I tell

you! I’ll make her gallop! She’ll gallop!” and he picked up the

whip, preparing himself with relish to flog the little mare

“Get in! Come along!” The crowd laughed “D’you hear,

she’ll gallop!”

“Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her for the last

ten years!”

“She’ll jog along!”

“Don’t you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of you, get

ready!”

“All right! Give it to her!”

They all clambered into Mikolka’s cart, laughing and

mak-ing jokes Six men got in and there was still room for more

They hauled in a fat, rosy-cheeked woman She was dressed in

red cotton, in a pointed, beaded headdress and thick leather

shoes; she was cracking nuts and laughing The crowd round

them was laughing too and indeed, how could they help

laugh-ing? That wretched nag was to drag all the cartload of them at

a gallop! Two young fellows in the cart were just getting whips

ready to help Mikolka With the cry of “now,” the mare tugged

with all her might, but far from galloping, could scarcely move

forward; she struggled with her legs, gasping and shrinkingfrom the blows of the three whips which were showered uponher like hail The laughter in the cart and in the crowd wasredoubled, but Mikolka flew into a rage and furiously thrashedthe mare, as though he supposed she really could gallop

“Let me get in, too, mates,” shouted a young man in thecrowd whose appetite was aroused

“Get in, all get in,” cried Mikolka, “she will draw you all.I’ll beat her to death!” And he thrashed and thrashed at themare, beside himself with fury

“Father, father,” he cried, “father, what are they doing? ther, they are beating the poor horse!”

Fa-“Come along, come along!” said his father “They aredrunken and foolish, they are in fun; come away, don’t look!”and he tried to draw him away, but he tore himself away fromhis hand, and, beside himself with horror, ran to the horse.The poor beast was in a bad way She was gasping, standingstill, then tugging again and almost falling

“Beat her to death,” cried Mikolka, “it’s come to that I’ll

“You’ll kill her,” shouted the third

“Don’t meddle! It’s my property, I’ll do what I choose Get

in, more of you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go at a gallop!

.”

All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered

every-thing: the mare, roused by the shower of blows, began feebly

kicking Even the old man could not help smiling To think of

a wretched little beast like that trying to kick!

Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to the

mare to beat her about the ribs One ran each side

“Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes,” cried Mikolka

“Give us a song, mates,” shouted someone in the cart and

everyone in the cart joined in a riotous song, jingling a

tam-bourine and whistling The woman went on cracking nuts and

laughing

He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her

being whipped across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was

cry-ing, he felt chokcry-ing, his tears were streaming One of the men

gave him a cut with the whip across the face, he did not feel it

Wringing his hands and screaming, he rushed up to the

grey-headed old man with the grey beard, who was shaking his head

in disapproval One woman seized him by the hand and would

have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran

back to the mare She was almost at the last gasp, but began

kicking once more

“I’ll teach you to kick,” Mikolka shouted ferociously He

threw down the whip, bent forward and picked up from the

bottom of the cart a long, thick shaft, he took hold of one end

with both hands and with an effort brandished it over the mare

“He’ll crush her,” was shouted round him “He’ll kill her!”

“It’s my property,” shouted Mikolka and brought the shaftdown with a swinging blow There was a sound of a heavythud

“Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped?” shoutedvoices in the crowd

And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it fell asecond time on the spine of the luckless mare She sank back

on her haunches, but lurched forward and tugged forward withall her force, tugged first on one side and then on the other,trying to move the cart But the six whips were attacking her

in all directions, and the shaft was raised again and fell uponher a third time, then a fourth, with heavy measured blows.Mikolka was in a fury that he could not kill her at one blow

“She’s a tough one,” was shouted in the crowd

“She’ll fall in a minute, mates, there will soon be an end ofher,” said an admiring spectator in the crowd

“Fetch an axe to her! Finish her off,” shouted a third

“I’ll show you! Stand off,” Mikolka screamed frantically;

he threw down the shaft, stooped down in the cart and picked

up an iron crowbar “Look out,” he shouted, and with all hismight he dealt a stunning blow at the poor mare The blowfell; the mare staggered, sank back, tried to pull, but the barfell again with a swinging blow on her back and she fell on theground like a log

“Finish her off,” shouted Mikolka and he leapt beside

him-self, out of the cart Several young men, also flushed with drink,

seized anything they could come across—whips, sticks, poles,

and ran to the dying mare Mikolka stood on one side and

began dealing random blows with the crowbar The mare

stretched out her head, drew a long breath and died

“You butchered her,” someone shouted in the crowd

“Why wouldn’t she gallop then?”

“My property!” shouted Mikolka, with bloodshot eyes,

bran-dishing the bar in his hands He stood as though regretting

that he had nothing more to beat

“No mistake about it, you are not a Christian,” many voices

were shouting in the crowd

But the poor boy, beside himself, made his way, screaming,

through the crowd to the sorrel nag, put his arms round her

bleeding dead head and kissed it, kissed the eyes and kissed

the lips Then he jumped up and flew in a frenzy with his

little fists out at Mikolka At that instant his father, who had

been running after him, snatched him up and carried him out

of the crowd

“Come along, come! Let us go home,” he said to him

“Father! Why did they kill the poor horse!” he sobbed,

but his voice broke and the words came in shrieks from his

panting chest

“They are drunk They are brutal it’s not our

busi-ness!” said his father He put his arms round his father but he

felt choked, choked He tried to draw a breath, to cry out—and woke up

He waked up, gasping for breath, his hair soaked with spiration, and stood up in terror

per-“Thank God, that was only a dream,” he said, sitting downunder a tree and drawing deep breaths “But what is it? Is itsome fever coming on? Such a hideous dream!”

He felt utterly broken: darkness and confusion were in hissoul He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head onhis hands

“Good God!” he cried, “can it be, can it be, that I shall ally take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split herskull open that I shall tread in the sticky warm blood, breakthe lock, steal and tremble; hide, all spattered in the blood with the axe Good God, can it be?”

re-He was shaking like a leaf as he said this

“But why am I going on like this?” he continued, sitting upagain, as it were in profound amazement “I knew that I couldnever bring myself to it, so what have I been torturing myselffor till now? Yesterday, yesterday, when I went to make that

experiment), yesterday I realised completely that I could never

bear to do it Why am I going over it again, then? Why am

I hesitating? As I came down the stairs yesterday, I said myselfthat it was base, loathsome, vile, vile the very thought of itmade me feel sick and filled me with horror

“No, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Granted, granted that

there is no flaw in all that reasoning, that all that I have

con-cluded this last month is clear as day, true as arithmetic My

God! Anyway I couldn’t bring myself to it! I couldn’t do it, I

couldn’t do it! Why, why then am I still ?”

He rose to his feet, looked round in wonder as though

sur-prised at finding himself in this place, and went towards the

bridge He was pale, his eyes glowed, he was exhausted in

ev-ery limb, but he seemed suddenly to breathe more easily He

felt he had cast off that fearful burden that had so long been

weighing upon him, and all at once there was a sense of relief

and peace in his soul “Lord,” he prayed, “show me my path—

I renounce that accursed dream of mine.”

Crossing the bridge, he gazed quietly and calmly at the

Neva, at the glowing red sun setting in the glowing sky In

spite of his weakness he was not conscious of fatigue It was as

though an abscess that had been forming for a month past in

his heart had suddenly broken Freedom, freedom! He was free

from that spell, that sorcery, that obsession!

Later on, when he recalled that time and all that happened

to him during those days, minute by minute, point by point,

he was superstitiously impressed by one circumstance, which,

though in itself not very exceptional, always seemed to him

afterwards the predestined turning-point of his fate He could

never understand and explain to himself why, when he was

tired and worn out, when it would have been more convenient

for him to go home by the shortest and most direct way, he

had returned by the Hay Market where he had no need to go

It was obviously and quite unnecessarily out of his way, thoughnot much so It is true that it happened to him dozens of times

to return home without noticing what streets he passed through.But why, he was always asking himself, why had such an im-portant, such a decisive and at the same time such an abso-lutely chance meeting happened in the Hay Market (where hehad moreover no reason to go) at the very hour, the very minute

of his life when he was just in the very mood and in the verycircumstances in which that meeting was able to exert the grav-est and most decisive influence on his whole destiny? As though

it had been lying in wait for him on purpose!

It was about nine o’clock when he crossed the Hay Market

At the tables and the barrows, at the booths and the shops, allthe market people were closing their establishments or clear-ing away and packing up their wares and, like their customers,were going home Rag pickers and costermongers of all kindswere crowding round the taverns in the dirty and stinking court-yards of the Hay Market Raskolnikov particularly liked thisplace and the neighbouring alleys, when he wandered aim-lessly in the streets Here his rags did not attract contemptu-ous attention, and one could walk about in any attire withoutscandalising people At the corner of an alley a huckster andhis wife had two tables set out with tapes, thread, cotton hand-kerchiefs, etc They, too, had got up to go home, but were lin-gering in conversation with a friend, who had just come up to

them This friend was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or, as everyone called

her, Lizaveta, the younger sister of the old pawnbroker, Alyona

Ivanovna, whom Raskolnikov had visited the previous day to

pawn his watch and make his experiment He already knew

all about Lizaveta and she knew him a little too She was a

single woman of about thirty-five, tall, clumsy, timid,

submis-sive and almost idiotic She was a complete slave and went in

fear and trembling of her sister, who made her work day and

night, and even beat her She was standing with a bundle

be-fore the huckster and his wife, listening earnestly and

doubt-fully They were talking of something with special warmth

The moment Raskolnikov caught sight of her, he was

over-come by a strange sensation as it were of intense

astonish-ment, though there was nothing astonishing about this

meet-ing

“You could make up your mind for yourself, Lizaveta

Ivanovna,” the huckster was saying aloud “Come round

to-morrow about seven They will be here too.”

“To-morrow?” said Lizaveta slowly and thoughtfully, as

though unable to make up her mind

“Upon my word, what a fright you are in of Alyona

Ivanovna,” gabbled the huckster’s wife, a lively little woman “I

look at you, you are like some little babe And she is not your

own sister either-nothing but a step-sister and what a hand

she keeps over you!”

“But this time don’t say a word to Alyona Ivanovna,” her

husband interrupted; “that’s my advice, but come round to uswithout asking It will be worth your while Later on your sis-ter herself may have a notion.”

“Am I to come?”

“About seven o’clock to-morrow And they will be here.You will be able to decide for yourself.”

“And we’ll have a cup of tea,” added his wife

“All right, I’ll come,” said Lizaveta, still pondering, and shebegan slowly moving away

Raskolnikov had just passed and heard no more He passedsoftly, unnoticed, trying not to miss a word His first amaze-ment was followed by a thrill of horror, like a shiver runningdown his spine He had learnt, he had suddenly quite unex-pectedly learnt, that the next day at seven o’clock Lizaveta, theold woman’s sister and only companion, would be away fromhome and that therefore at seven o’clock precisely the old

woman would be left alone.

He was only a few steps from his lodging He went in like

a man condemned to death He thought of nothing and wasincapable of thinking; but he felt suddenly in his whole beingthat he had no more freedom of thought, no will, and thateverything was suddenly and irrevocably decided

Certainly, if he had to wait whole years for a suitable portunity, he could not reckon on a more certain step towardsthe success of the plan than that which had just presented it-self In any case, it would have been difficult to find out be-

op-the presence of some peculiar influences and coincidences In

the previous winter a student he knew called Pokorev, who

had left for Harkov, had chanced in conversation to give him

the address of Alyona Ivanovna, the old pawnbroker, in case

he might want to pawn anything For a long while he did not

go to her, for he had lessons and managed to get along

some-how Six weeks ago he had remembered the address; he had

two articles that could be pawned: his father’s old silver watch

and a little gold ring with three red stones, a present from his

sister at parting He decided to take the ring When he found

the old woman he had felt an insurmountable repulsion for

her at the first glance, though he knew nothing special about

her He got two roubles from her and went into a miserable

little tavern on his way home He asked for tea, sat down and

sank into deep thought A strange idea was pecking at his brain

like a chicken in the egg, and very, very much absorbed him

Almost beside him at the next table there was sitting a

stu-dent, whom he did not know and had never seen, and with

him a young officer They had played a game of billiards and

began drinking tea All at once he heard the student mention

to the officer the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and give him

her address This of itself seemed strange to Raskolnikov; he

had just come from her and here at once he heard her name

Of course it was a chance, but he could not shake off a very

extraordinary impression, and here someone seemed to be

speaking expressly for him; the student began telling his friend

various details about Alyona Ivanovna

“She is first-rate,” he said “You can always get money fromher She is as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousandroubles at a time and she is not above taking a pledge for arouble Lots of our fellows have had dealings with her But she

is an awful old harpy .”

And he began describing how spiteful and uncertain shewas, how if you were only a day late with your interest thepledge was lost; how she gave a quarter of the value of an ar-ticle and took five and even seven percent a month on it and so

on The student chattered on, saying that she had a sisterLizaveta, whom the wretched little creature was continuallybeating, and kept in complete bondage like a small child, thoughLizaveta was at least six feet high

“There’s a phenomenon for you,” cried the student and helaughed

They began talking about Lizaveta The student spoke abouther with a peculiar relish and was continually laughing andthe officer listened with great interest and asked him to sendLizaveta to do some mending for him Raskolnikov did notmiss a word and learned everything about her Lizaveta wasyounger than the old woman and was her half-sister, being thechild of a different mother She was thirty-five She workedday and night for her sister, and besides doing the cooking andthe washing, she did sewing and worked as a charwoman andgave her sister all she earned She did not dare to accept an

order or job of any kind without her sister’s permission The

old woman had already made her will, and Lizaveta knew of it,

and by this will she would not get a farthing; nothing but the

movables, chairs and so on; all the money was left to a

monas-tery in the province of N——, that prayers might be said for

her in perpetuity Lizaveta was of lower rank than her sister,

unmarried and awfully uncouth in appearance, remarkably tall

with long feet that looked as if they were bent outwards She

always wore battered goatskin shoes, and was clean in her

per-son What the student expressed most surprise and

amuse-ment about was the fact that Lizaveta was continually with

child

“But you say she is hideous?” observed the officer

“Yes, she is so dark-skinned and looks like a soldier dressed

up, but you know she is not at all hideous She has such a

good-natured face and eyes Strikingly so And the proof of it

is that lots of people are attracted by her She is such a soft,

gentle creature, ready to put up with anything, always willing,

willing to do anything And her smile is really very sweet.”

“You seem to find her attractive yourself,” laughed the

of-ficer

“From her queerness No, I’ll tell you what I could kill that

damned old woman and make off with her money, I assure

you, without the faintest conscience-prick,” the student added

with warmth The officer laughed again while Raskolnikov

shuddered How strange it was!

“Listen, I want to ask you a serious question,” the studentsaid hotly “I was joking of course, but look here; on one side

we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horridold woman, not simply useless but doing actual mischief, whohas not an idea what she is living for herself, and who will die

in a day or two in any case You understand? You understand?”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” answered the officer, watching hisexcited companion attentively

“Well, listen then On the other side, fresh young livesthrown away for want of help and by thousands, on every side!

A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, onthat old woman’s money which will be buried in a monastery!Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path;dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from vice,from the Lock hospitals—and all with her money Kill her,take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to theservice of humanity and the good of all What do you think,would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of gooddeeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruptionand decay One death, and a hundred lives in exchange—it’ssimple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of that sickly,stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence! Nomore than the life of a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact be-cause the old woman is doing harm She is wearing out thelives of others; the other day she bit Lizaveta’s finger out ofspite; it almost had to be amputated.”

“Of course she does not deserve to live,” remarked the

of-ficer, “but there it is, it’s nature.”

“Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature,

and, but for that, we should drown in an ocean of prejudice

But for that, there would never have been a single great man

They talk of duty, conscience—I don’t want to say anything

against duty and conscience; —but the point is, what do we

mean by them Stay, I have another question to ask you

Lis-ten!”

“No, you stay, I’ll ask you a question Listen!”

“Well?”

“You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me, would

you kill the old woman yourself? “

“Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it It’s

nothing to do with me .”

“But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there’s no

jus-tice about it Let us have another game.”

Raskolnikov was violently agitated Of course, it was all

ordinary youthful talk and thought, such as he had often heard

before in different forms and on different themes But why

had he happened to hear such a discussion and such ideas at

the very moment when his own brain was just conceiving

the very same ideas? And why, just at the moment when he had

brought away the embryo of his idea from the old woman had

he dropped at once upon a conversation about her? This

coin-cidence always seemed strange to him This trivial talk in a

tavern had an immense influence on him in his later action; asthough there had really been in it something preordained, someguiding hint

of his former fever and shivering, and he realised with reliefthat he could lie down on the sofa Soon heavy, leaden sleepcame over him, as it were crushing him

He slept an extraordinarily long time and without ing Nastasya, coming into his room at ten o’clock the nextmorning, had difficulty in rousing him She brought him intea and bread The tea was again the second brew and again inher own tea-pot

dream-“My goodness, how he sleeps!” she cried indignantly “And

“Do you want some tea?”

“Afterwards,” he said with an effort, closing his eyes againand turning to the wall

Nastasya stood over him.

“Perhaps he really is ill,” she said, turned and went out She

came in again at two o’clock with soup He was lying as before

The tea stood untouched Nastasya felt positively offended and

began wrathfully rousing him

“Why are you lying like a log?” she shouted, looking at him

with repulsion

He got up, and sat down again, but said nothing and stared

at the floor

“Are you ill or not?” asked Nastasya and again received no

answer “You’d better go out and get a breath of air,” she said

after a pause “Will you eat it or not?”

“Afterwards,” he said weakly “You can go.”

And he motioned her out

She remained a little longer, looked at him with

compas-sion and went out

A few minutes afterwards, he raised his eyes and looked for

a long while at the tea and the soup Then he took the bread,

took up a spoon and began to eat

He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without appetite, as

it were mechanically His head ached less After his meal he

stretched himself on the sofa again, but now he could not sleep;

he lay without stirring, with his face in the pillow He was

haunted by day-dreams and such strange day-dreams; in one,

that kept recurring, he fancied that he was in Africa, in Egypt,

in some sort of oasis The caravan was resting, the camels were

peacefully lying down; the palms stood all around in a plete circle; all the party were at dinner But he was drinkingwater from a spring which flowed gurgling close by And itwas so cool, it was wonderful, wonderful, blue, cold water run-ning among the parti-coloured stones and over the clean sandwhich glistened here and there like gold Suddenly he heard

com-a clock strike He stcom-arted, roused himself, rcom-aised his hecom-ad, lookedout of the window, and seeing how late it was, suddenly jumped

up wide awake as though someone had pulled him off the sofa

He crept on tiptoe to the door, stealthily opened it and beganlistening on the staircase His heart beat terribly But all wasquiet on the stairs as if everyone was asleep It seemed tohim strange and monstrous that he could have slept in suchforgetfulness from the previous day and had done nothing, hadprepared nothing yet And meanwhile perhaps it had strucksix And his drowsiness and stupefaction were followed by anextraordinary, feverish, as it were distracted haste But thepreparations to be made were few He concentrated all his en-ergies on thinking of everything and forgetting nothing; andhis heart kept beating and thumping so that he could hardlybreathe First he had to make a noose and sew it into his over-coat—a work of a moment He rummaged under his pillowand picked out amongst the linen stuffed away under it, a wornout, old unwashed shirt From its rags he tore a long strip, acouple of inches wide and about sixteen inches long He foldedthis strip in two, took off his wide, strong summer overcoat of

some stout cotton material (his only outer garment) and

be-gan sewing the two ends of the rag on the inside, under the

left armhole His hands shook as he sewed, but he did it

suc-cessfully so that nothing showed outside when he put the coat

on again The needle and thread he had got ready long before

and they lay on his table in a piece of paper As for the noose,

it was a very ingenious device of his own; the noose was

in-tended for the axe It was impossible for him to carry the axe

through the street in his hands And if hidden under his coat

he would still have had to support it with his hand, which

would have been noticeable Now he had only to put the head

of the axe in the noose, and it would hang quietly under his

arm on the inside Putting his hand in his coat pocket, he could

hold the end of the handle all the way, so that it did not swing;

and as the coat was very full, a regular sack in fact, it could not

be seen from outside that he was holding something with the

hand that was in the pocket This noose, too, he had designed

a fortnight before

When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand into a

little opening between his sofa and the floor, fumbled in the

left corner and drew out the pledge), which he had got ready

long before and hidden there This pledge was, however, only

a smoothly planed piece of wood the size and thickness of a

silver cigarette case He picked up this piece of wood in one of

his wanderings in a courtyard where there was some sort of a

workshop Afterwards he had added to the wood a thin smooth

piece of iron, which he had also picked up at the same time inthe street Putting the iron which was a little the smaller onthe piece of wood, he fastened them very firmly, crossing andre-crossing the thread round them; then wrapped them care-fully and daintily in clean white paper and tied up the parcel

so that it would be very difficult to untie it This was in order

to divert the attention of the old woman for a time, while shewas trying to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment Theiron strip was added to give weight, so that the woman mightnot guess the first minute that the “thing” was made of wood.All this had been stored by him beforehand under the sofa Hehad only just got the pledge out when he heard someone sud-denly about in the yard

“It struck six long ago.”

“Long ago! My God!”

He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and gan to descend his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly, like acat He had still the most important thing to do—to steal theaxe from the kitchen That the deed must be done with an axe

be-he had decided long ago He had also a pocket pruning-knife,but he could not rely on the knife and still less on his ownstrength, and so resolved finally on the axe We may note inpassing, one peculiarity in regard to all the final resolutionstaken by him in the matter; they had one strange characteris-tic: the more final they were, the more hideous and the moreabsurd they at once became in his eyes In spite of all his

agonising inward struggle, he never for a single instant all that

time could believe in the carrying out of his plans

And, indeed, if it had ever happened that everything to the

least point could have been considered and finally settled, and

no uncertainty of any kind had remained, he would, it seems,

have renounced it all as something absurd, monstrous and

im-possible But a whole mass of unsettled points and

uncertain-ties remained As for getting the axe, that trifling business cost

him no anxiety, for nothing could be easier Nastasya was

con-tinually out of the house, especially in the evenings; she would

run in to the neighbours or to a shop, and always left the door

ajar It was the one thing the landlady was always scolding her

about And so, when the time came, he would only have to go

quietly into the kitchen and to take the axe, and an hour later

(when everything was over) go in and put it back again But

these were doubtful points Supposing he returned an hour

later to put it back, and Nastasya had come back and was on

the spot He would of course have to go by and wait till she

went out again But supposing she were in the meantime to

miss the axe, look for it, make an outcry —that would mean

suspicion or at least grounds for suspicion

But those were all trifles which he had not even begun to

consider, and indeed he had no time He was thinking of the

chief point, and put off trifling details, until he could believe in

it all But that seemed utterly unattainable So it seemed to

himself at least He could not imagine, for instance, that he

would sometime leave off thinking, get up and simply go there Even his late experiment (i.e his visit with the object of afinal survey of the place) was simply an attempt at an experi-ment, far from being the real thing, as though one should say

“come, let us go and try it—why dream about it!”—and at once

he had broken down and had run away cursing, in a frenzywith himself Meanwhile it would seem, as regards the moralquestion, that his analysis was complete; his casuistry had be-come keen as a razor, and he could not find rational objections

in himself But in the last resort he simply ceased to believe inhimself, and doggedly, slavishly sought arguments in all direc-tions, fumbling for them, as though someone were forcing anddrawing him to it

At first—long before indeed—he had been much occupiedwith one question; why almost all crimes are so badly con-cealed and so easily detected, and why almost all criminals leavesuch obvious traces? He had come gradually to many differentand curious conclusions, and in his opinion the chief reasonlay not so much in the material impossibility of concealing thecrime, as in the criminal himself Almost every criminal is sub-ject to a failure of will and reasoning power by a childish andphenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when prudenceand caution are most essential It was his conviction that thiseclipse of reason and failure of will power attacked a man like

a disease, developed gradually and reached its highest pointjust before the perpetration of the crime, continued with equal

violence at the moment of the crime and for longer or shorter

time after, according to the individual case, and then passed

off like any other disease The question whether the disease

gives rise to the crime, or whether the crime from its own

pe-culiar nature is always accompanied by something of the

na-ture of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide

When he reached these conclusions, he decided that in his

own case there could not be such a morbid reaction, that his

reason and will would remain unimpaired at the time of

carry-ing out his design, for the simple reason that his design was

“not a crime .” We will omit all the process by means of

which he arrived at this last conclusion; we have run too far

ahead already We may add only that the practical, purely

material difficulties of the affair occupied a secondary position

in his mind “One has but to keep all one’s will-power and

reason to deal with them, and they will all be overcome at the

time when once one has familiarised oneself with the

minut-est details of the business .” But this preparation had never

been begun His final decisions were what he came to trust

least, and when the hour struck, it all came to pass quite

dif-ferently, as it were accidentally and unexpectedly

One trifling circumstance upset his calculations, before he

had even left the staircase When he reached the landlady’s

kitchen, the door of which was open as usual, he glanced

cau-tiously in to see whether, in Nastasya’s absence, the landlady

herself was there, or if not, whether the door to her own room

was closed, so that she might not peep out when he went in forthe axe But what was his amazement when he suddenly sawthat Nastasya was not only at home in the kitchen, but wasoccupied there, taking linen out of a basket and hanging it on

a line Seeing him, she left off hanging the clothes, turned tohim and stared at him all the time he was passing He turnedaway his eyes, and walked past as though he noticed nothing.But it was the end of everything; he had not the axe! He wasoverwhelmed

“What made me think,” he reflected, as he went under thegateway, “what made me think that she would be sure not to

be at home at that moment! Why, why, why did I assume this

so certainly?”

He was crushed and even humiliated He could havelaughed at himself in his anger A dull animal rage boiledwithin him

He stood hesitating in the gateway To go into the street, to

go a walk for appearance’ sake was revolting; to go back to hisroom, even more revolting “And what a chance I have lost forever!” he muttered, standing aimlessly in the gateway, just op-posite the porter’s little dark room, which was also open Sud-denly he started From the porter’s room, two paces away fromhim, something shining under the bench to the right caughthis eye He looked about him—nobody He approachedthe room on tiptoe, went down two steps into it and in a faintvoice called the porter “Yes, not at home! Somewhere near

though, in the yard, for the door is wide open.” He dashed to

the axe (it was an axe) and pulled it out from under the bench,

where it lay between two chunks of wood; at once, before

go-ing out, he made it fast in the noose, he thrust both hands into

his pockets and went out of the room; no one had noticed

him! “When reason fails, the devil helps!” he thought with a

strange grin This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily

He walked along quietly and sedately, without hurry, to

avoid awakening suspicion He scarcely looked at the

passers-by, tried to escape looking at their faces at all, and to be as little

noticeable as possible Suddenly he thought of his hat “Good

heavens! I had the money the day before yesterday and did not

get a cap to wear instead!” A curse rose from the bottom of his

soul

Glancing out of the corner of his eye into a shop, he saw by

a clock on the wall that it was ten minutes past seven He had

to make haste and at the same time to go someway round, so

as to approach the house from the other side

When he had happened to imagine all this beforehand, he

had sometimes thought that he would be very much afraid

But he was not very much afraid now, was not afraid at all,

indeed His mind was even occupied by irrelevant matters, but

by nothing for long As he passed the Yusupov garden, he was

deeply absorbed in considering the building of great fountains,

and of their refreshing effect on the atmosphere in all the

squares By degrees he passed to the conviction that if the

sum-mer garden were extended to the field of Mars, and perhapsjoined to the garden of the Mihailovsky Palace, it would be asplendid thing and a great benefit to the town Then he wasinterested by the question why in all great towns men are notsimply driven by necessity, but in some peculiar way inclined

to live in those parts of the town where there are no gardensnor fountains; where there is most dirt and smell and all sorts

of nastiness Then his own walks through the Hay Marketcame back to his mind, and for a moment he waked up toreality “What nonsense!” he thought, “better think of nothing

at all!”

“So probably men led to execution clutch mentally at everyobject that meets them on the way,” flashed through his mind,but simply flashed, like lightning; he made haste to dismissthis thought And by now he was near; here was the house,here was the gate Suddenly a clock somewhere struck once

“What! can it be half-past seven? Impossible, it must be fast!”Luckily for him, everything went well again at the gates

At that very moment, as though expressly for his benefit, ahuge waggon of hay had just driven in at the gate, completelyscreening him as he passed under the gateway, and the waggonhad scarcely had time to drive through into the yard, before hehad slipped in a flash to the right On the other side of thewaggon he could hear shouting and quarrelling; but no onenoticed him and no one met him Many windows looking intothat huge quadrangular yard were open at that moment, but

he did not raise his head—he had not the strength to The

staircase leading to the old woman’s room was close by, just on

the right of the gateway He was already on the stairs

Drawing a breath, pressing his hand against his throbbing

heart, and once more feeling for the axe and setting it straight,

he began softly and cautiously ascending the stairs, listening

every minute But the stairs, too, were quite deserted; all the

doors were shut; he met no one One flat indeed on the first

floor was wide open and painters were at work in it, but they

did not glance at him He stood still, thought a minute and

went on “Of course it would be better if they had not been

here, but it’s two storeys above them.”

And there was the fourth storey, here was the door, here

was the flat opposite, the empty one The flat underneath the

old woman’s was apparently empty also; the visiting card nailed

on the door had been torn off—they had gone away! He

was out of breath For one instant the thought floated through

his mind “Shall I go back?” But he made no answer and began

listening at the old woman’s door, a dead silence Then he

lis-tened again on the staircase, lislis-tened long and intently then

looked about him for the last time, pulled himself together,

drew himself up, and once more tried the axe in the noose

“Am I very pale?” he wondered “Am I not evidently agitated?

She is mistrustful Had I better wait a little longer till

my heart leaves off thumping?”

But his heart did not leave off On the contrary, as though

to spite him, it throbbed more and more violently He couldstand it no longer, he slowly put out his hand to the bell andrang Half a minute later he rang again, more loudly

No answer To go on ringing was useless and out of place.The old woman was, of course, at home, but she was suspi-cious and alone He had some knowledge of her habits andonce more he put his ear to the door Either his senses werepeculiarly keen (which it is difficult to suppose), or the soundwas really very distinct Anyway, he suddenly heard somethinglike the cautious touch of a hand on the lock and the rustle of

a skirt at the very door Someone was standing stealthily close

to the lock and just as he was doing on the outside was secretlylistening within, and seemed to have her ear to the door

He moved a little on purpose and muttered something aloudthat he might not have the appearance of hiding, then rang athird time, but quietly, soberly, and without impatience, Re-calling it afterwards, that moment stood out in his mind viv-idly, distinctly, for ever; he could not make out how he had hadsuch cunning, for his mind was as it were clouded at momentsand he was almost unconscious of his body An instant later

he heard the latch unfastened

She held out her hand.

“But how pale you are, to be sure and your hands are

trembling too? Have you been bathing, or what?”

“Fever,” he answered abruptly “You can’t help getting pale

if you’ve nothing to eat,” he added, with difficulty

articulat-ing the words

His strength was failing him again But his answer sounded

like the truth; the old woman took the pledge

“What is it?” she asked once more, scanning Raskolnikov

intently, and weighing the pledge in her hand

“A thing cigarette case Silver Look at it.”

“It does not seem somehow like silver How he has

wrapped it up!”

Trying to untie the string and turning to the window, to

the light (all her windows were shut, in spite of the stifling

heat), she left him altogether for some seconds and stood with

her back to him He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe

from the noose, but did not yet take it out altogether, simply

holding it in his right hand under the coat His hands were

fearfully weak, he felt them every moment growing more numb

and more wooden He was afraid he would let the axe slip and

fall A sudden giddiness came over him

“But what has he tied it up like this for?” the old woman

cried with vexation and moved towards him

He had not a minute more to lose He pulled the axe quite

out, swung it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself,

and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought theblunt side down on her head He seemed not to use his ownstrength in this But as soon as he had once brought the axedown, his strength returned to him

The old woman was as always bareheaded Her thin, lighthair, streaked with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited

in a rat’s tail and fastened by a broken horn comb which stoodout on the nape of her neck As she was so short, the blow fell

on the very top of her skull She cried out, but very faintly, andsuddenly sank all of a heap on the floor, raising her hands toher head In one hand she still held “the pledge.” Then hedealt her another and another blow with the blunt side and onthe same spot The blood gushed as from an overturned glass,the body fell back He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bentover her face; she was dead Her eyes seemed to be starting out

of their sockets, the brow and the whole face were drawn andcontorted convulsively

He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body and felt

at once in her pocket (trying to avoid the streaming body)—the same right-hand pocket from which she had taken the key

on his last visit He was in full possession of his faculties, freefrom confusion or giddiness, but his hands were still trem-bling He remembered afterwards that he had been particu-larly collected and careful, trying all the time not to get smearedwith blood He pulled out the keys at once, they were all, asbefore, in one bunch on a steel ring He ran at once into the

bedroom with them It was a very small room with a whole

shrine of holy images Against the other wall stood a big bed,

very clean and covered with a silk patchwork wadded quilt

Against a third wall was a chest of drawers Strange to say, so

soon as he began to fit the keys into the chest, so soon as he

heard their jingling, a convulsive shudder passed over him He

suddenly felt tempted again to give it all up and go away But

that was only for an instant; it was too late to go back He

positively smiled at himself, when suddenly another terrifying

idea occurred to his mind He suddenly fancied that the old

woman might be still alive and might recover her senses

Leav-ing the keys in the chest, he ran back to the body, snatched up

the axe and lifted it once more over the old woman, but did

not bring it down There was no doubt that she was dead

Bend-ing down and examinBend-ing her again more closely, he saw clearly

that the skull was broken and even battered in on one side He

was about to feel it with his finger, but drew back his hand and

indeed it was evident without that Meanwhile there was a

perfect pool of blood All at once he noticed a string on her

neck; he tugged at it, but the string was strong and did not

snap and besides, it was soaked with blood He tried to pull it

out from the front of the dress, but something held it and

pre-vented its coming In his impatience he raised the axe again to

cut the string from above on the body, but did not dare, and

with difficulty, smearing his hand and the axe in the blood,

after two minutes’ hurried effort, he cut the string and took it

off without touching the body with the axe; he was not taken—it was a purse On the string were two crosses, one ofCyprus wood and one of copper, and an image in silver fili-gree, and with them a small greasy chamois leather purse with

mis-a steel rim mis-and ring The purse wmis-as stuffed very full; Rmis-askolnikovthrust it in his pocket without looking at it, flung the crosses

on the old woman’s body and rushed back into the bedroom,this time taking the axe with him

He was in terrible haste, he snatched the keys, and begantrying them again But he was unsuccessful They would notfit in the locks It was not so much that his hands were shak-ing, but that he kept making mistakes; though he saw for in-stance that a key was not the right one and would not fit, still

he tried to put it in Suddenly he remembered and realisedthat the big key with the deep notches, which was hangingthere with the small keys could not possibly belong to the chest

of drawers (on his last visit this had struck him), but to somestrong box, and that everything perhaps was hidden in thatbox He left the chest of drawers, and at once felt under thebedstead, knowing that old women usually keep boxes undertheir beds And so it was; there was a good-sized box underthe bed, at least a yard in length, with an arched lid coveredwith red leather and studded with steel nails The notched keyfitted at once and unlocked it At the top, under a white sheet,was a coat of red brocade lined with hareskin; under it was asilk dress, then a shawl and it seemed as though there was

nothing below but clothes The first thing he did was to wipe

his blood- stained hands on the red brocade “It’s red, and on

red blood will be less noticeable,” the thought passed through

his mind; then he suddenly came to himself “Good God, am I

going out of my senses?” he thought with terror

But no sooner did he touch the clothes than a gold watch

slipped from under the fur coat He made haste to turn them

all over There turned out to be various articles made of gold

among the clothes—probably all pledges, unredeemed or

wait-ing to be redeemed—bracelets, chains, ear-rwait-ings, pins and such

things Some were in cases, others simply wrapped in

newspa-per, carefully and exactly folded, and tied round with tape

Without any delay, he began filling up the pockets of his

trou-sers and overcoat without examining or undoing the parcels

and cases; but he had not time to take many

He suddenly heard steps in the room where the old woman

lay He stopped short and was still as death But all was quiet,

so it must have been his fancy All at once he heard distinctly a

faint cry, as though someone had uttered a low broken moan

Then again dead silence for a minute or two He sat squatting

on his heels by the box and waited holding his breath

Sud-denly he jumped up, seized the axe and ran out of the

bed-room

In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta with a big bundle

in her arms She was gazing in stupefaction at her murdered

sister, white as a sheet and seeming not to have the strength to

cry out Seeing him run out of the bedroom, she began faintlyquivering all over, like a leaf, a shudder ran down her face; shelifted her hand, opened her mouth, but still did not scream.She began slowly backing away from him into the corner, star-ing intently, persistently at him, but still uttered no sound, asthough she could not get breath to scream He rushed at herwith the axe; her mouth twitched piteously, as one sees babies’mouths, when they begin to be frightened, stare intently atwhat frightens them and are on the point of screaming Andthis hapless Lizaveta was so simple and had been so thoroughlycrushed and scared that she did not even raise a hand to guardher face, though that was the most necessary and natural ac-tion at the moment, for the axe was raised over her face Sheonly put up her empty left hand, but not to her face, slowlyholding it out before her as though motioning him away Theaxe fell with the sharp edge just on the skull and split at oneblow all the top of the head She fell heavily at once.Raskolnikov completely lost his head, snatching up her bundle,dropped it again and ran into the entry

Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especiallyafter this second, quite unexpected murder He longed to runaway from the place as fast as possible And if at that moment

he had been capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if

he had been able to realise all the difficulties of his position,the hopelessness, the hideousness and the absurdity of it, if hecould have understood how many obstacles and, perhaps, crimes